Tag: SYN

Moderna Flu Vax Prompts Response to More Common Strains, But Misses in Influenza B

Moderna Flu Vax Prompts Response to More Common Strains, But Misses in Influenza B

MedCity News

A Moderna messenger RNA vaccine for influenza now has preliminary data from a pivotal study showing the shot prompted a strong immune response to the more common strains of the virus but fell short against less common strains.
The results reported Thursday are from one of two pivotal studies for the Moderna vaccine, mRNA-1010, which is assessing the shot for safety and immune response. A separate Phase 3 study is evaluating the shot for efficacy. Results from that study could come as early as next month. Moderna’s vaccine encodes hemagglutinin, a protein on the surface of the influenza virus that is also…

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Talkspace Launches New Mental Health Portal for Employers

Talkspace Launches New Mental Health Portal for Employers

MedCity News

Virtual behavioral health provider Talkspace unveiled a new product Thursday that provides employers with access to a library of mental health resources that they can share with employees.
New York City-based Talkspace serves employers, payers and consumers, and provides self-guided mental health programs, therapy and psychiatry. Its new product, Talkspace Engage, aims to help employers promote their mental health benefits to their employees, a challenge that many companies struggle with, said Erin Boyd, chief growth officer of enterprise at Talkspace. “One resounding common theme that we heard among [employers] was that, ‘I don’t know how to get people to use these benefits…

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Health Transformation Alliance Teams up With Cognoa for Autism Diagnostic Device

Health Transformation Alliance Teams up With Cognoa for Autism Diagnostic Device

MedCity News

The Health Transformation Alliance (HTA), a group of nearly 60 large employers, announced Thursday it is partnering with pediatric behavioral health company Cognoa for its diagnostic device for autism.
HTA is a cooperative of self-insured employers, including Walgreens, CocaCola, Verizon and American Express. Palo Alto, California-based Cognoa, meanwhile, is a developer of AI-based technologies for early diagnosis of children with developmental and behavioral health conditions. Its Canvas Dx product is authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and assists healthcare providers in diagnosing autism spectrum disorder for children ages 18 months through 72 months. The product is the first of its sort…

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Cell Therapy Biotech Talaris Ends Two Kidney Transplant Trials, Restructures

Cell Therapy Biotech Talaris Ends Two Kidney Transplant Trials, Restructures

MedCity News

Talaris Therapeutics aimed to transform solid organ transplants with a cell therapy that replaces anti-rejection drugs patients need for the rest of their lives. But after clinical trial setbacks, the biotech has decided to end two kidney transplant studies. Although a separate test of its experimental therapy is continuing in a rare autoimmune condition, Talaris has commenced a restructuring plan that it said could culminate in a merger or sale of the company.
The restructuring announced Thursday will lead to the layoff of about one-third of Talaris’s staff. As of the end of the third quarter of 2022, the Louisville, Kentucky-based biotech…

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3 Conditions that Must be Met to Make Interoperability a Reality

3 Conditions that Must be Met to Make Interoperability a Reality

MedCity News

The term “interoperability” holds different meanings for different people. While we all would agree that the primary goal of interoperability is to make sharing data easier in order to improve outcomes and lower costs, there are varying perceptions about what that looks like. FHIR has been great at giving us a common set of protocols and standards to work from, but how we connect and how data actually gets shared are still open challenges.
In a truly interoperable healthcare ecosystem, I strongly believe data wouldn’t need to be requested, aggregated, and validated each time it’s needed. And it wouldn’t be limited to specific…

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Digital as the Differentiator for Biopharma and Medtech

Digital as the Differentiator for Biopharma and Medtech

MedCity News

With the Inflation Reduction Act now on the books, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. That, combined with other headwinds such as increased competition from me-too drugs, and ever-present pricing pressure from payers, means that pharma players now more than ever need a new and powerful tool to differentiate their products. We believe the next decade of transformation is digital.
Learning from the auto industry Almost every industry has had to confront a fundamental existential question: What is our product? Consider the automotive industry, which once was largely about hardware…

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How to Leverage Diagnostic Development to Guard Against RSV, Flu and Covid-19 [Sponsored]

How to Leverage Diagnostic Development to Guard Against RSV, Flu and Covid-19 [Sponsored]

MedCity News

For the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals focused on understanding the Covid-19 virus, how best to guard against it, and developing tests to detect it. They also tracked, aggregated, and analyzed health data to assess and monitor the public health threat on a regional, state and country-wide level. In the longer term, vaccine development and distribution were used to slow the spread to avoid a collapse of the health system and to reduce the potency of the virus for the majority of people.
More recently, attention has shifted to the long perceived threat of viruses coming together with…

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Blood Biotech Grifols Cuts Deep in the U.S. to Find €400M in Savings

Blood Biotech Grifols Cuts Deep in the U.S. to Find €400M in Savings

MedCity News

Grifols, a company that turns blood plasma into therapies for immunological disorders and other conditions, is laying off about 2,000 U.S. workers as part of a corporate restructuring projected to yield up to €400 million in annual cost savings, the biotech announced Wednesday.
The layoffs represent about 8% of the Barcelona-based company’s global workforce, but they will happen mainly in its U.S. plasma operations. That’s notable because as a company that relies on plasma, the U.S. is vital to its business. The starting point for Grifols’s therapies is blood plasma. Key to its drug-making process is fractionation, in which the protein components…

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BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

MedCity News

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee unveiled its first Health Equity Report Tuesday, which analyzed six topics of health disparities: behavioral health, cancer, child and adolescent care, chronic condition management, Covid-19 and maternal health.
The report serves as a way to understand the inequities that exist among its members to determine ways the payer can address the disparities, said Dr. Andrea Willis, chief medical officer of BCBS Tennessee. “We wanted to get a better picture of the health issues and barriers to care faced by our members and Tennesseans as a whole, so that we could more effectively partner with health care providers to…

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HHS Aims To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs Through 3 New Models

HHS Aims To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs Through 3 New Models

MedCity News

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) unveiled three new models Tuesday that will be tested by the CMS Innovation Center and aim to lower prescription drug costs. The models include access to $2 generic drugs.
The news is in response to President Joe Biden’s executive order issued in October, which directed HHS to find ways to lower prescription drug costs and improve access to drug therapies for those enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid health plans. The models are meant to build on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for…

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